Seeds, tools, the state of the garden bed, which was still under snow, but not for long. He pulled out the seed stores, two canvas bags he'd had for years. Same seeds, more or less, that he planted every year. Enough for one person. Carefully calculated for one person.
He looked at the bags, did some math, went back to the barn, came back with a third bag he'd been keeping in reserve. Enough for three. He set all three on the workbench and went back to the inventory. Tsula found the three seed bags when she came to help. She stood in the doorway of the storage shed and looked at them on the workbench.
Then she looked at Hadley. He was reorganizing the tool rack and didn't look up. She picked up one of the bags, turned it over in her hands. "This is a lot of seed," she said. "It's what we need," he said.
A pause. "For three people," she said. "Yes." Another pause. "Hadley, the beans will go in the south bed," he said.
"Ground there warms first. I usually do them second week of April. "The squash—" "Hadley." He looked up. She was holding the seed bag and looking at him with an expression that was doing several things at once.
Ahem. Something warm, something complicated. Something that in different circumstances on a different face might be called something. "The squash," he said again and her face did the thing, the corner of the mouth and then more than that, a real smile. Full.
Unguarded. The kind he'd seen once before in the cold morning air when Rex made his presidential approach to the fence. It changed the whole room. "Okay," she said. "The squash."
And she picked up the second seed bag and started reading the label. Nayeli came in from the fence line that evening. She stamped the mud off her boots. Mud, real mud. The ground was soft enough for mud now.
And came in and looked at the three three seed bags on the kitchen table where Hadley had moved them. She looked at them for a moment. She looked at him. She looked at Tsula. Tsula was doing something innocent at the stove.
"You made a decision," Nayeli said. "I made a plan," Hadley said. "Decisions are yours." Nayeli looked at the seed bags, three of them lined up on the table. Not dramatic, not ceremonial, just practical.
The practical expression of a man who has counted forward into spring and included three people in the count. She sat down, looked at the bags for a while, then she said, "We'll need to expand the south bed." "I know," Hadley said. "I was thinking another four feet." "Six," she said.